A day after the most decorated and experienced member of the Indian boxing contingent, Mary Kom, lost in her round of 16 bout of the women’s flyweight category, the youngest boxer of the team, Lovlina Borgohain won her quarterfinal match to ensure that India brings home its second medal from this year’s Olympics.
Though her welterweight opponent Nien-Chin Chen showed better footwork, Lovlina displayed superior composure and accuracy to lead unanimously in the first two rounds, and eventually win the fight by a split decision (4:1). Lovlina let out a loud roar when the verdict was announced in the nearly-empty Kokugikan Arena, the echoes amplifying the ecstasy in the 24-year-old’s voice.
Stories of an athlete’s struggles of making it to the Olympics are fairly common, and Lovlina’s is yet another one of those remarkable and inspiring tales.
The Assamese boxer grew up in Baro Mukhia village of the Golaghat district of Assam, where she practiced muay thai in school along with her twin sisters, who went on to pursue the sport. Despite the family’s financial struggles, her father, who worked at a tea garden, supported the sporting dreams of his daughters.
Lovlina was scouted by Sports Authority of India coach Padum Boro in 2012, who encouraged her to pursue boxing, and took her as a trainee to Guwahati, 300km from her village. She told The Indian Express that she did not know anything about boxing except that she had heard of Mary Kom.
Lovlina would join the senior camp in 2016 before bursting on to the scene with a bronze medal at the 2017 Asian Championships. She followed that up with a series of bronze medals at the 2018 and 2019 World Championships and the 2017 and 2021 Asian Championships.
An injury scare in late 2019 dampened her hopes of making it to Tokyo but she recovered in time for the qualifiers. She beat Uzbekistan’s Maftunakhon Melieva in the quarterfinals of the Olympic boxing qualification tournament in March 2020 to become the first female Assamese boxer to reach the Olympics.
Once the pandemic struck, she was stuck at home and, like many athletes all over the world, had to train by herself. The national team coaches would send her videos to improve her technique and chart schedules for her to work in the morning and evening.
Once training resumed at the national facility in Pune and she regained her form, then came the next blow. In February, her mother was to undergo a kidney operation in Kolkata, and the fact that she was so far away greatly troubled the boxer. The coaches permitted her to leave the camp to be by her mother’s side, which meant she lost precious training days ahead of the Olympics just as she was building momentum for it.
A few months later, there was a Covid outbreak at the training camp at Patiala where the women boxers were training. Though none of the Olympians were affected, several members of the staff had tested positive and Lovlina was once again made to train in a room in isolation. Through it all, the youngster remained resolute and displayed great form when the team trained in Assisi, Italy, ahead of their trip to Tokyo.
Lovlina is the only representative from Assam across sports at Tokyo 2020. After her first round in the quarterfinal, her coach could be heard dishing out instructions to her, and just as it was time to go for round two, he could be heard telling her, “The whole of India is watching you!” The message was received as she attacked Chen with greater purpose and determination in the second round.
Lovlina will play her semifinal against Turkey’s Busenaz Surmeneli, who outclassed the Ukrainian Anna Lysenko by a unanimous decision just before the Indian’s bout.
The colour of her medal is left to be decided, but she has already joined the elite duo of Vijender Singh and Mary Kom to win an Olympic medal in boxing for India.
